Surgical procedures for connecting a conduit to biological tissue, such as blood vessels and the heart, have required manually suturing the conduit or coupling device to the biological tissue. Manual suturing can be difficult due to limited access to, location of, and/or type of biological tissue. When the procedure is performed on a blood vessel, blood flow may need to be blocked temporarily to avoid the loss of large amounts of blood during the time required for manual suturing and/or to stop pulsatile motion which can make accurate placement of sutures difficult. When the procedure is performed on the heart, the patient is connected to a heart-lung bypass machine and the heart is stopped for a period of time during the procedure.
There is a continuing need to make the procedure for connecting a conduit easier and faster to perform. There is also a need to be able to connect a conduit to the heart, such as during implantation of a ventricular assist device (VAD), with the option of allowing the heart to continue to beat and not having to resort to using a heart-lung bypass machine.